"The seas are quiet, when the winds give o'er;
So calm are we, when passions are no more."
How different were the effusions of Waller's earlier muse! In the year
1645, Humphrey Mosley published "_Poems, &c_., written by Mr. Ed. Waller,
of Beaconsfield, Esquire, lately a Member of the Honourable House of
Commons." The title-page also states that--
"All the Lyrick Poems in this Booke were set by Mr. Henry Lawes of the
King's Chappell, and one of his Majesties Private Musick."
It is not a little remarkable that the same publisher, in the same year,
should have also given to the world the first edition of that precious
volume--Milton's _Minor Poems_; and, in the advertisement prefixed, he thus
adverts to the circumstance:--
"That incouragement I have already received from the most ingenious
men, in their clear and courteous entertainment of _Mr. Waller's_ late
choice Peeces, hath onece more made me adventure into the world,
presenting it with these _ever-green and not to be blasted laurels_."
Had Humphrey Mosley any presentiment of the deathless fame of Milton?